Haleigh Poutre Almost Victim of Euthanasia, Now Making Good Progress

Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Haleigh Poutre was the victim of child abuse and was nearly killed via euthanasia when Massachusetts officials gave up on her after she entered a coma. Now Poutre, once termed "brain dead" by doctors, continues to improve and is speaking a few words, her grandmother says.

Sandra Sudyka, the girl's biological grandmother, is no longer allowed to visit her granddaughter and now says she is ready to speak to the media about Poutre's condition.

She told The Republican newspaper that she last saw Poutre on July 18 but indicated she was "doing well."

"She was bright-eyed and smiling. She is always responsive to us," Sudyka explained.

Department of Social Services had asked Sudyka not to talk with reporters about Haleigh, but since they will no longer allow her and Haleigh's biological mother, Allison Avrett, to visit the 12 year-old, she said she's going to talk to the media.

"I decided since they broke the deal, I am going to talk. People should know how well she is doing," Sudyka told the newspaper.

"They don't want people to know how she is doing after they wanted to pull the plug," Sudyka said.

DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro declined an interview with The Republican but said that the visiting privileges have been suspended, not terminated.

"I was saying to her 'I love you,' and she was trying to say 'love' and it came out as a vibration...'ove,'" Sudyka said.

Sudyka, who is working with an attorney to adopt the girl, said she has said hello, responds to comments and questions, speaks nonverbally and is able to write her name. Haleigh can't walk and is confined to a wheelchair.

Avrett, Poutre's biological mother, lost custody of her daughter after physically abusing her. Poutre was put into a foster home where her adoptive parents also abused her. Her adopted mother committed suicide after abusing Poutre so much she had to be hospitalized.

DSS took Poutre into custody and when she appeared to slip into a coma, the agency asked the state Supreme Court for permission to take her life. That's when Poutre began responding.

Poutre has been receiving physical, speech and occupational therapy since January 26 at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton.

Gov. Mitt Romney appointed a commission to look into how the state failed to properly handle the girl's case.

>> I'm at least glad they didn't harvest Terri like a a slaughterhouse animal.

That is an apt description of the practice of organ harvesting today. It is so profitable that large hospitals routinely have a team of surgeons on call 24/7 waiting for bodies. (I have been calling them human chop shops.)

There is a great deal of information about all this if you have the stamina to read through this thread, and also, perhaps, one of the large Terri threads. Search for my name if you wish. I often write about organ transplants and the related hazards.

This story is about Terri from a favorable perspective, and soon I will be posting a series of links to news articles, mostly negative, but reflective of the power of the Terri Legacy. The left cannot leave it alone, as it haunts them at every turn, unmasks their intentions. But here is the latest, from a more positive note.

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I was surfing the Internet today and found a story about a young Oregon boy who miraculously woke up from a coma after almost two years.

According to his Mom, experts said her son was in a “persistent vegetative state”. They did not give her much hope that her son would recover.

However, to everyone’s surprise, the young boy woke up.

Carla Rivers, his Mom: “We can’t even imagine how differently this story would have turned out had we given up.”

Read the full story on Koin.com titled “Story Of Hope, Faith: Young Boy Wakes From Coma” here.

This moving story got me thinking again about Terri Schiavo. After more surfing, I found a post on BlogsForTerri.com about a recent commentary in the North Country Gazette titled “The Wrongful Death Of Terri Schindler Schiavo”.

It’s a very well written commentary about the whole sad Terri Schiavo case. You can read it here.

The part of the commentary that touched me the most was a comparison of Terri being deprived of food and water by court order until she died and the story of the arrest of a young woman for “neglecting hamsters at her home”. The young Wisconsin woman faces 39 counts of failing to provide food, drink and proper shelter to animals.

I had a hard time believing the hamster story, so I searched for it. Sadly, it is true. You can read about it here in a Local6.com story titled “Woman Arrested For Hamster Neglect”.

Jesus must be weeping over this.

Has it come to the point where hamsters have more value than a helpless lady? A lady who like the Oregon boy, might have woken up some day.

Dan England’s posts can also be found at Getting Elected Blogline and Townhall. Dan’s website is GettingElected.com. Posted by Dan England on October 9th, 2006 under All News.

What Is The Value of A Hamster?

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The left (Yale Daily News) continues, obsessed with the Terri effect:

Lamont spoke before a crowded auditorium of 300 people, predominantly undergraduates, about his race to oust three-term incumbent Joe Lieberman '64 LAW '67 from his seat next month. Lamont spoke for thirty minutes, outlining his reasons for entering the race and touching on a wide variety of campaign topics ranging from education and the war in Iraq to what Lamont called Lieberman's staunch support of President George W. Bush.

"George Bush was driving this country into a ditch, and if Lieberman wouldn't stand up, I would," Lamont said of his decision to enter the race.

Lamont said he deplored the intrusion of government into people's private lives and what he called Lieberman's warped view of bipartisanship. Lamont cited the Terry Schiavo case, where both Bush and Lieberman favored federal intervention, and domestic wiretaps, which he said were illegal and contrary to American values.

Lamont discusses Senate race

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Sputtering...

Recorded by HBO in April 2006 at Washington D.C.'s Warner Theater, comedian Lewis Black mounts a sputtering tirade against governmental stupidity in Red, White and Screwed. I don't see this being in President Bush's NetFlix queue anytime soon, but for the rest of us who are frustrated and exasperated at some of the inanity that comes from our political leaders, well, we can revel in Black's blunt rants about Bush, Dick Cheney's hunting abilities or the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe it's the location—being D.C.—but Black's set here is decidedly more politics-oriented than some of his other stand-up performances, though he does toss a few grenades on the Bible and the Terry Schiavo controversy. But those are the rare non-political/governmental sidetracks, because once he gets past explaining how he couldn't perform at The Kennedy Center because of his habit of dropping the "f-bomb," the heart of this particular set has him going after the inadequacies of the government with great vitriol.

Lewis Black: Red, White and Screwed

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But we can't in good conscience recommend Ralph Hall, the 83-year-old GOP incumbent; Glenn Melancon, a smart, young Democrat challenger; or Libertarian Kurt G. Helm in this race to represent the 4th Congressional District in Washington.
Mr. Hall, a Democrat-turned-Republican, has represented the North Texas district for more than a quarter-century. A fiscal conservative, he wisely favors entitlement reform and free trade, but he doesn't offer the district the energetic, progressive leadership it deserves. Many of his positions cause us concern, including his opposition to requiring Congress to pay for new tax cuts, and his support for renewing aspects of the Patriot Act we believe go too far in trampling civil liberties. Mr. Hall also voted to intervene in Terri Schiavo's end-of-life case and opposed expanding federal funds for embryonic stem cell research.

We Recommend... No candidate in U.S. House District 4

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More sputtering: Thill is shrill...

And that's just one particularly nasty piece of legislation that the 109th has turned out. There are plenty more stink bombs where that came from. Passed in 2005, Public Law 109-3, otherwise infamously remembered as Theresa Marie Schiavo's law, empowered the parents of Teri Schiavo to file suit against anyone who was "party to State court proceedings relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain [her] life." How politically expedient was that legislation? It unanimously passed the Senate 3-0 on a Sunday afternoon, with 97 out of 100 Senators not even in attendance, and only made the grade because Bush was decided it was important enough to sign at 1 a.m. after returning from (where else?) vacation in Crawford.

Worst. Congress. Ever.

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More support to the leftist thesis: "Killing innocents is good, saving innocents is bad."

As a personal injury lawyer, Campbell earned the highest professional ratings and peer commendations and either presided over or helped direct various legal associations, including membership on the Board of Governors of the Florida Bar from 1988 to 1996. He knows the law and respects its power and limits. He opposed Gov. Jeb Bush's intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, the woman who was brain-damaged beyond hope of recovery, and whose feeding-tube removal Bush tried to stop. In a case that displayed his ear for consumer issues that affect a huge number of Floridians, he sued the Department of Education under the state's open-records law, uncovering the fact that up to two-thirds of those hired to grade the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test had no degree in the subject they were grading.

For attorney general... Campbell more likely to shed partisanship

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Danforth redux in the Washington Times...

He cites the Republican Party's efforts to overturn court decisions allowing relatives to unplug the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo as evidence of an unhealthy mingling of religion and politics that betrays the party's true conservative heritage.

"It was a threat to some of our most heartfelt values. It was Big Brotherism in the extreme, an exercise of the raw and awesome power of the federal government,' he writes.

Different bridges

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More cheers and endorsements for Campbell continuing the leftist bias...

In Tallahassee, Sen. Campbell twice voted against the state intervening in the Terri Schiavo case. Mr. McCollum has said that he agreed with Gov. Bush's decision to intervene, but that once the courts ruled, the issue was over. In fact, any credible attorney general candidate shouldn't need the courts to tell him that the 2003 "Terri's Law" was unconstitutional. In mid-July, Mr. McCollum said that he still hadn't read the Schiavo rulings or the January 2006 Florida Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's voucher program.

Campbell: A top lawyer for Florida's top lawyer

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A different tone...He goes to Sibley.

Then, on Mother's Day weekend -- a favorite family holiday, on which Steve and I always feted the man I had dubbed "My Father, the Jewish Mother" -- something snapped. Around 2 a.m. Sunday, he tried to attack his nurse with a chair and, in the confusion, he fell. (She had feinted sideways and was unhurt). I rushed over to his apartment, where Aron demanded I call an ambulance. It would have taken him to the nearest hospital, Georgetown, a Catholic facility, at a time when the country was still reverberating from the Terry Schiavo debate. Seized by paranoia that he might become some sectarian stranger's end-of-life pawn, I instead drove him to Sibley, where they shot him up with morphine, put his arm in a sling and released him.

The Conversation She Didn't Want to Face Her Father's Impending Death. ..Talking About It With Him Helped Them Both.

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Puffington Host:

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According to the New York Times, the prosecutor's office in Los Angeles is considering a criminal case against Cardinal Mahoney, who heads the country's largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese, for moving "pedophile priests from parish to parish in the face of accusations."

Rep. Dennis Hastert has spoken at faith-based summits at the White House, quoted the Pope at the Schiavo hearings and spoken against abortion.

Faith-based Sin

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Redux all over again! (And redundant, too)...

Wait a minute, as I repeat what was said earlier. Crist is a moderate? Just because he slipped up and let Terri be killed? Shucks, I thought that was just a minor defect in an otherwise conservative creature, or so many told us on recent threads. I mean he must have been more really conservative than that far right wing crazy, Gallagher who actually wanted to not kill Terri! (/sarcasm for those who don't know...)

TALLAHASSEE -- Republican Charlie Crist and Democrat Jim Davis are largely staking out the political middle to win the Florida governor's race, with only subtle differences dividing the two contenders across a wide array of social issues.

Unlike Crist's Republican primary opponent, Tom Gallagher, who veered far to the political right, the Nov. 7 contest is a matchup of two moderates who barely mention abortion, gay marriage, gambling or other such divisive issues as they campaign across the state.

Crist, Davis struggle for distinction on social issues

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I didn't know the Taliban were that extreme.

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Whatever happened to "Keep Your Laws Off My Body"? In debates over abortion, gay marriage, the Terri Schiavo case, sodomy laws, and more, liberals and leftists have said that government should stay out of intimate family matters. Will they now say that the division of housework between husband and wife is a family matter to be worked out by the parties concerned?

And when a leftist government uses the power of the state to impose its own moral vision on every workplace and home in the country ... who's the Taliban now?

Who's the Taliban now? The religious right is often branded 'the American Taliban'... but the left can be just as bad.

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A more positive note, on upcoming Joe Negron...

In a congressional district that leans Republican, Negron has made a point of playing up his conservative credentials on the campaign trail while labeling his opponent a "John Kerry liberal."

When voters ask Negron about his stance on abortion, his pat response is: "I have a pro-life voting record."

Negron voted for a Florida law that requires parental notification if a minor is seeking an abortion. He also supported Gov. Jeb Bush's high-profile battle to keep coma victim Terri Schiavo alive.

Negron's Career Years In Making

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Continuing the mystique of the meaning of "PVS":

This nation can commit its energy to four types of public health risks. First, it can invest disproportionate energy to problems that affect very few people. For example, only 25,000 of the approximately 300 million Americans live in persistent vegetative states like that experienced by Terri Schiavo. Or, despite the media hysteria over avian influenza, only 113 deaths worldwide from this disease are known. Second, we can invest energy into problems that affect many people but have complex and costly solutions. Malaria is an epidemic disease with tragic consequences for whole societies, but its eradication will be very, very difficult. Third, we can invest our energy into research at the limits of scientific knowledge. Stem cell research may provide therapies for diseases otherwise difficult to treat, but it is impossible to forecast which diseases we will be able to treat in new ways, or how many living Americans will benefit. Or, fourth, we can invest energy to avert a risk that affects many people, has known solutions, and immediately saves lives and money.

Focus health policy on better prenatal care

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Ping to wagglebee thread:

Pierre, SD (LifeNews.com) -- The abortion debate has long been dominated by language on both sides that often times seems as if neither side is talking to the other. While pro-life advocates typically talk about how abortion destroys the lives of babies before their birth, abortion supporters frame debate in terms of a woman's choice.

Pro-abortion groups expected backers of the South Dakota abortion ban to rely on traditional debate points to persuade voters to support the ban.

However, the pro-life group heading up the fight for the ban is turning the abortion debate on its ear. By employing pro-woman arguments that focus on how abortion hurts women and how women who have had abortions regret their decisions, leading abortion advocates are stumped on how to respond.

Abortion Advocates Struggle Responding to Pro-Woman, Pro-Life Message

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Judge Greer violated THIS law banning cruelty to any Pinellas County hamster -- and even cruelty to Terri.

Pinellas County Animal Control Ordinance

Sec. 14-32. Cruelty to animals.

(a) Whoever impounds or confines any animal in any place and fails to supply the animal during such confinement with a sufficient quantity of good and wholesome food and water shall be in violation of this article.

(b) Whoever keeps any animal in any enclosure without wholesome exercise and change of air shall be in violation of this article.

(d) A person who unnecessarily overloads, overdrives, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sustenance or shelter, or unnecessarily or cruelly beats, mutilates, or [and] kills any animal, or causes the same to be done, or carries in or upon any vehicle, or otherwise, any animal in a cruel or inhumane manner, shall be in violation of this article.

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